Hubbard claimed that Dianetics can increase intelligence, eliminate unwanted emotions and alleviate a wide range of illnesses he believed to be psychosomatic. Among the conditions purportedly treated against are arthritis, allergies, asthma, some coronary difficulties, death, eye trouble, ulcers, migraine headaches, and sex deviations.[7]

Scientology teaches that people are immortalbeings who have forgotten their true nature.[8] Its method of spiritual rehabilitation is a type of counselling known as auditing, in which practitioners aim to consciously re-experience painful or traumatic events in their past in order to free themselves of their limiting effects.[9] Study materials and auditing courses are made available to members in return for specified donations.[10] Scientology is legally recognized as a tax-exempt religion in the United States and some other countries,[11][12][13][14] and the Church of Scientology emphasizes this as proof that it is a bona fide religion.[15] In other countries, notably France, Germany and the United Kingdom, Scientology does not have comparable religious status.

The Church of Scientology is one of the most controversial new religious movements to have arisen in the 20th century. As with most controversy, the less scholarly the analysis, the less measured the argument. Least convincingly, it is routinely described as a Wikipedia:cult, but of course 'Cult' itself is a mainstream propaganda phrase that is taken with a pinch of salt by the counterculture. The media often categorize it as a group that financially defrauds and abuses its members, charging exorbitant fees for its spiritual services, but then these descriptions mark the extreme end of a continuum that most organized religions share.[10][19][20] The Church of Scientology has consistently used litigation against such critics, and its aggressiveness in pursuing its foes has been condemned as harassment.[21][22]

Further controversy has focused on Scientology's belief that souls ("thetans") reincarnate and have lived on other planets before living on Earth.[23] Former members say that some of Hubbard's writings on this remote extraterrestrial past, included in confidential Upper Levels, are not revealed to practitioners until they have paid thousands of dollars to the Church of Scientology.[24][25] Another controversial belief held by Scientologists is Anti-psychiatry; that the practice of psychiatry is destructive and abusive and must be abolished.[26][27]

In 1901, Allen Upward coined Scientology "as a disparaging term, to indicate a blind, unthinking acceptance of scientific doctrine" according to the Internet Sacred Text Archive as quoted in the preface to Forgotten Books' recent edition of Upward's book, The New Word: On the meaning of the word Idealist.[28] Continuing to quote, the publisher writes "I'm not aware of any evidence that Hubbard knew of this fairly obscure book."[29]

In 1934, philosopher A Nordenholz published a book that used the term to mean "science of science".[30] It is also uncertain whether Hubbard was aware of this prior usage of the word.[31]

Although a literal translation into colloquial English is Science Science, the word Scientology is a pairing of the Latin word scientia ("knowledge", "skill"), which comes from the verb scīre ("to know"), and the Greek λόγος lógos ("word" or "account [of]").[32][33]

Three yachts started the fleet reserved for elite members of Scientology called Wikipedia:Sea Org;[34][35] the current leader of Scientology, David Miscavige, began with Scientology as a less elite member, whose tasks included delivering telexes, grounds-keeping, food service and taking photographs for Scientology brochures.[35]

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Operation Snow White was the Church of Scientology's name for a conspiracy during the 1970s to purge unfavorable records about Scientology and its founder L. Ron Hubbard. This project included a series of infiltrations and thefts from 136 government agencies, foreign embassies and consulates, as well as private organizations critical of Scientology, carried out by Church members, in more than 30 countries;[36] the single largest infiltration of the United States government in history[37] with up to 5,000 covert agents.[38] This was also the operation that exposed 'Operation Freakout', because this was the case that initiated the US government investigation of the Church.[38]

Scientology members infiltrated government offices, most notably those of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, setting up wiretaps and stealing documents. Eleven highly-placed Church executives, including Mary Sue Hubbard (wife of founder L. Ron Hubbard and second-in-command of the organization), pleaded guilty or were convicted in federal court of obstructing justice, burglary of government offices, and theft of documents and government property. The case was United States vs. Mary Sue Hubbard et al., 493 F. Supp. 209 (D.D.C. 1979).[39][40][41][42]

Operation Freakout, also known as Operation PC Freakout, was a Church of Scientology covert plan intended to have the US author and journalist Paulette Cooper imprisoned or committed to a mental institution. The plan, undertaken in 1976 following years of Church-initiated lawsuits and covert harassment, was meant to eliminate the perceived threat that Cooper posed to the Church and obtain revenge for her publication in 1971 of a highly critical book, Wikipedia:The Scandal of Scientology. A high ranking CS leader, having been directed to obtain information about PC so that she could be "handled",[43] ordered his subordinates to "attack her in as many ways as possible" and undertake "wide-scale exposure of PC’s sex life".[44] Much of the campaign against Cooper was extreme harassment and libel of a sexual nature; she also received death threats.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation discovered documentary evidence of the plot and the preceding campaign of harassment during an investigation into the Church of Scientology in 1977, eventually leading to the Church compensating Cooper in an out-of-court settlement.

Not merely science-fictional references, but that characteristic of 1950s pulp magazines and drive-in B Movies acquired by Wikipedia:Retrofuturism, can be found in Hubbard's Scientology-related works. Scientologists could find themselves living in "robot bodies" in past lives, being killed by "zap guns," living aboard spaceships or flying "space wagons" capable of traveling "a trillionlight years per day."[45] Scientology magazines even now are often illustrated with pictures of spaceships and exploding stars, and Scientology books published during the 1960s and 1970s depicted science fiction scenes on their dustjackets.

Hubbard later dramatized the story of Xenu as a film script, Revolt in the Stars, in 1977, but failed to find a studio willing to buy the work. His novels Battlefield Earth and Mission Earth are not directly related to Scientology, but critics have noted a similarity between themes of these later novels and Scientology doctrine, particularly "the very strong opposition against 20th century psychology and psychiatry, which is seen as a major source of evil."[46]

↑Lucy Morgan (29 March 1999). "Abroad: Critics public and private keep pressure on Scientology". St. Petersburg Times. "In the United States, Scientology gained status as a tax-exempt religion in 1993 when the Internal Revenue Service agreed to end a long legal battle over the group's right to the exemption"</li>